September 14, 2020

Glenn M. Lungarini
Executive Director, CAS-CIAC
30 Realty Drive, Cheshire, CT 06410
Dear Mr. Lungarini and CAS-CIAC Board Members:
Thank you for the constructive dialogue on Friday, September 11, 2020 and for forwarding your
updated fall interscholastic athletics guidance document, which included new revisions to the
Individual Sport Mitigating Strategies for football and volleyball. We thank the CIAC for
continuing to look for ways to engage student-athletes in low and moderate risk physical
activities this Fall, and we share your concern for their physical, mental and social well-being
and development.
In order to reduce the risk of transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in
settings where individuals come together for activities like work, school, athletics, or other
public gatherings, DPH has recommended several generally accepted public health strategies
including the use of close-fitting face coverings that completely cover the nose and mouth for
source control of respiratory droplets, maintaining a distance of at least 6 feet from other people,
and frequent cleaning of surfaces and hands. With respect to the changes you propose for indoor
volleyball, DPH acknowledges that your proposal for the use of a close-fitting face covering by
all participants may reduce the risk of virus transmission during this activity. As we have said in
the past, we recommend that any changes CIAC intends to make to how any sport they sanction
is traditionally played be vetted through your Sports Medicine Committee to ensure that they are
in agreement with the safety of those changes, especially those to be used during competitive
play. In this case, we would recommend checking back with that Committee to verify that their
previous recommendation against face coverings during vigorous physical activity (as indicated
in your most recent document) has changed and that they are now comfortable allowing it.
CIAC has also included in the most recent document shared with DPH several new measures to
be implemented for football, and we agree that most of those strategies also align well with the
generally accepted public health recommendations for reducing the spread of COVID-19.
Additionally, you propose the use of plastic shields that attach to the helmet or a cloth covering
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 over the front grill portion of the helmet for football as further strategies designed to reduce the
risk categorization for football. In their guidance to their membership, the National Federation
of State High School Associations (NFHS) Sports Medicine Advisory Committee has indicated
that individual sports meeting their definition of “higher risk” could be considered “moderate
risk” by having “protective equipment in place that may reduce the likelihood of respiratory
particle transmission between participants”. To our knowledge, and as affirmed by
representatives of the CIAC Sports Medicine Committee on our September 11th call, there is
currently no scientific information available to determine: (1) the effectiveness of plastic shields
that attach to the helmet or a cloth covering over the front grill portion of the helmet in
preventing the spread of respiratory droplets among players and (2) that these specific prevention
measures are safe for high school players to use during play. Without any additional data or
documentation, DPH could not definitively say whether or not these technologies are safe to use
or could be expected to work effectively from an infection control or epidemiologic perspective
to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Nor could we assert that they would change the
categorization of full contact football from “higher risk” to “moderate risk.”
DPH continues to recommend substituting athletic or any other activities that could be
considered “moderate risk” or “lower risk” in place of “higher risk” ones and/or postponing
those activities to a later time when other public health strategies may be more available and
better studied. However, we would encourage CIAC to continue to work with your existing
Sports Medicine Committee, in consultation with NFHS, to determine whether CIAC’s proposed
mitigation strategies meet the standards set forth by NFHS to consider a reduced risk
categorization for football or any other “higher risk” sport, as categorized by NFHS. Having
more complete information, as well as affirmation from the CIAC Sports Medicine Committee
and NFHS of their confidence in your proposed strategies, will likely be of great assistance to the
CIAC Board of Control, individual school districts, and participant families in their decisionmaking process as to whether they feel that they can safely and responsibly engage in football
and indoor volleyball activities this Fall, as well as other “higher risk” or indoor “moderate risk”
sports going forward.
Sincerely,

Deidre S. Gifford, MD, MPH
Acting Commissioner
cc:

P. Mounds, Chief of Staff, State of Connecticut
J. Geballe, COO, State of Connecticut
M. Cardona, Commissioner, CSDE